PIN THE TAIL ON THE NUMBERS

Trying to make sense of the district numbers in the
Delaware General Assembly, particularly in the House of
Representatives, is like random digit dialing. There is
no telling where it ends up.

The 1st Representative District and the 2nd
Representative District? No problem. They are next to
one another in Wilmington.

But the 13th and the 14th? No way. The 13th is
Elsmere. The 14th is Rehoboth Beach. They could be
neighbors, but only if the driveway was 87 miles long.

Redistricting did this. Redistricting and the
legislators' irrational insistence on clinging to their
district numbers like they were guns or religion or
lucky charms or something.

The district numbers get more and more out of whack
every 10 years, when districts have to be collapsed in
some places and opened in others to remedy the
population shifts. There is no reason not to renumber
the districts instead of, say, assigning the number of
the old 20th Representative District in Hockessin to a
new district in Sussex County, but the legislators will
not have it.

Pete Schwartzkopf, the House's Democratic majority
leader who was in charge of redistricting, talked about
re-sequencing the numbers when the maps were redrawn
this year for the 2012 election, but he did not talk
about it for long.

"It got shot down pretty quickly," Schwartzkopf said.
"The number is important to the people who live there
and the people who represent it, and what harm is it?"

No harm really, as long as Delaware does not mind
having its districts look like the leavings of a wild
game of "Pin the Tail on the Donkey." Even the election
officials do not mind.

"There would be logical people that might not like
it, but it doesn't make any difference to us," said
Elaine Manlove, the state election commissioner.

One of those logical people was Christine Whitehead,
a retired lawyer who made the case for renumbering at a
public hearing in Legislative Hall in Dover, but to no
avail.

"Please create some sequential, organized numbering
system that uses smaller to larger numbers north to
south. Scattering them all over the state in no order
looks like you are trying to make it harder for anyone
to do a voter analysis based on the last election
results. To the national groups that follow what states
do with redistricting, it looks ridiculous," Whitehead
said.

Never mind that the state is assuming the look of a
giant bingo card. People really do get attached to their
numbers.

Take the 29th Representative District in Kent County.
The Republican committee members there named themselves
the "Fightin' 29th." They do not want their number
changed. Ever.

"I don't remember exactly when we decided to call
ourselves that, but it gets everybody energized," said
Cathy Murray, a former Republican state vice-chair who
lives in the 29th.

The district numbers loom so large that it was the
one favor done for Dave Sokola, a Democratic senator
from Pike Creek Valley. Sokola and Liane Sorenson, the
Republican minority whip, were clumped into one district
that has more of her constituents than his but kept his
old district number.

At least Sokola could keep using his campaign signs.
The number from Sorenson's 6th Senatorial District was
relocated to Sussex County. It sits among the 18th and
20th districts.